We sure have had a lot of farewell parties. In 2009, we had people meet us at the Dave & Busters in Westlake, Ohio. In 2011, we had a get together at our rental house in Snoqualmie. As last minute as it was, we had a relatively small gathering at our (sold) house here in Cleveland tonight.
This one, despite being relatively small, was special. The only way it could have been better would have been to have Seattle friends visit! The mix was completely strange, and yet, surprisingly conducive to conversation. My dad was here, my cousins Dave and Niki and their family, my dear friends The Freezes, the Kushlaks, who were the parents to two girls I went to high school with, and Brandon and his wife, representatives from the Cedar Point/amusement park circle. All told, it's only a dozen people, but each from totally different periods or aspects of my life. The weirdest thing about it is that none of them would likely have awareness about each other if it weren't for me as the common thread, but there were so many great conversations.
Also strange were all of the small world things that connected us. My dad knew people that the Kushlaks knew. She was also cousins with Tim, who was in both of my weddings. Dave is obviously family. Freeze knows me from work, where we both knew Tim, so he was one degree from the Kushlaks. Dave has been also coming to my parties for at least 15 years, and Brandon has been coming to my parties for about as long, so he knows Dave and Freeze that way. The bottom line is that various parties have known each other for at least 25 years in various ways, so no one was truly a stranger, despite ages ranging from 70 to 1.
After everyone else left, and Simon was in bed, Brandon and his wife joined us in the hot tub, and we had some quasi-drunken chats about everything from cars to family to vacations. It was really a fantastic time. We didn't really spend a ton on food or anything, but it was great to have even a few people from such different parts of my life all in the same place. It makes you realize just how rare good conversation is.
The really funny thing is that you probably can't live in a more ideal place to see friends (eventually) than Orlando, because everyone ends up there at some point. It's certainly not a permanent goodbye by any stretch of the imagination.
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